14 DAY TRIAL // Windows XP will soon become hackers’ favorite target, as Microsoft will retire the operating system and thus stop providing patches and security updates to resolve flaws.
Security company Fortinet warns that cybercriminals across the web will actually prefer to attack high-value businesses and individuals, so it’s essential for these two categories to make the move to a newer software or at least take the necessary measures to secure their computers.
At the same time, Fortinet believes that most hackers will actually keep their exploits private and try to sell them once end-of-support comes, in an attempt to monetize the found Windows XP vulnerabilities.
“Next year, we predict hackers, already in possession of zero day exploits, will wait until the 8th in order to sell them to the highest bidder. Because of their expected high price tag, these zero days will likely be used to launch targeted attacks against high-value businesses and individuals rather than deployed by common cybercriminals in order to propagate mass infections,” Fortinet explained.
At this point, Windows XP is still powering more than 30 percent of computers worldwide, or approximately 19 percent of desktop PCs, if we are to judge by StatCounter’s data.
Since Windows XP remains the second most popular operating system on the market, Microsoft’s biggest challenge is to move users to a newer platform, not only because XP is becoming extremely vulnerable to attacks, but also because it needs to boost the market share of Windows 8.1.
And still, not many users seem to be willing to abandon Windows XP and move to a newer Windows version. This would, in turn, need complementary hardware upgrades, turning the whole transition into a very costly process.
As a result, many decide to either go for Windows 7 or even to pick a non-Windows operating system, such as Linux.